Feeling musically inclined, but haven’t the time or knowledge to write sheet music? Now you can produce your own sonic creations simply by doodling on a piece of paper.
Designed by Adafruit (in collaboration with Jay Silver), Drawdio is an analog synthesizer circuit that straps to any soft-leaded pencil, and lets you crank out electronic sounds while you sketch. The kit takes advantage of the conductive properties of the graphite in the pencil lead, and produces a veritable cacophony of sounds as you put pencil to paper.
So maybe you can’t call those otherworldly bleeps, beeps and squeaks “music”, but with enough practice you might be able to carry a basic tune… or you could give one of these a try the next time you have to fill in all those perfect little circles on your SAT or GMAT exam. I’m sure the test administrator would love that.
Adafruit sells the Drawdio kit for $19.50 (USD), including the circuit board, all necessary hardware and a 2B pencil. You’ll need basic soldering skills to put Drawdio together, so don’t expect it to work without some experience building electronic kits.
With the recent launch of the iTunes App Store, we’re just starting to see the tip of the iceberg when it comes to applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Here’s one I’m really looking forward to playing with when it hits the App Store later this month.
Amidio’s Noise.io is a full-featured sound synthesizer, capable of producing all kinds of interesting noises and sound effects. It usese something called Enhanced Subspace Frequency Modulation (ESFM) to generate its beeps, blips and beats. A unique multi-touch interface lets you manipulate every aspect of the sounds you create.
Once sounds are created, they can be sequenced for playback and enhanced with audio effects like chorus, delay, phaser and flanger. And if you’re not creative enough to make your own sounds from scratch, Noise.io ships with 81 sound presets and a preset editor which lets you save your own for future playback. The guys at Amidio make the bold claim that the app can produce sounds comparable to dedicated hardware synths.
While I’ve seen other music makers in the App Store, this is the first full-fledged synthesizer application that I’ve come across. Noise.io should be released to the iTunes App Store on 8/25/2008, and will cost just $6.99.
When I think of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it usually conjures up imagery of HAL 9000’s glowing red light, the strains of Also Sprach Zarathrustra, and dead astronauts launched silently into space.
But the guys over at Studio Electronics used the film as inspiration for the design of their new Omega Orion synthesizer. From its sleek white and black case design, to the ethereal blue glow of its LED lighting, this 38 pound behemoth of an analog synth is truly a stunner.
Designed by Tim Caswell and Antoine Argentieres, the synth is actually based on the not particularly good (OK, just plain ugly) looking Omega 8, an 8-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer - wrapped up in a retro-future package. No pricing or release date has been announced, but with the Omega 8 retailing for around $4,600 (USD), expect the Orion to set you back at least a couple of mortgage payments.
The venerable Commodore 64 is well known among the electronic music community as a synthesizer modder’s dream machine thanks to its robust SID audio chipset. But most of the mods I’ve seen end up looking just like an old C64 and all the cool stuff is going on under the hood. So when I came across this mod, all those glowy knobs and buttons got me really excited.
Modder subatomicglue’s MidiboxSID may have started life as a C64, but now it’s nearly unrecognizable thanks to a serious synth rehab. I especially love the backlit reddish-orange potentiometers and LED illumination throughout the box, making this retro synth perfect for cranking out beeps and blips out in a darkened nightclub or concert gig.
This isn’t any old stock C64 either. Subatomicglue embedded 8 SID chips under the covers of this puppy, which lets it generate 4 stereo pairs of sound, and 4 synthesizer “voices” at the same time. The controls expose plenty of flexibility to tune and tweak every nuance of the system’s 8-bit chip sounds, and of course, it can be MIDI controlled for sequencing purposes.
The cool thing is that the specs for building Midibox SID are available for anyone cares to make one for themselves. As a matter of fact, the one featured in this article is based on a reference design by Midibox SID originator “TK” (Thorsten Klose). Here’s a video of TK’s original in action.
If you thought that the 312-key Chromatone synthesizer had a few more keys than your everyday piano, just wait ’til you get a load of the Tonal Plexus and its even more plentiful keyboard design.
The Tonal Plexus series of keyboards is a micro-tonal input device featuring rows and rows of buttons which generate tones with far more precision than an 88-key piano can handle.
Created by H-Pi Intstruments, the Tonal Plexus comes in variants from a compact 2-octave, 422 key controller, all the way up to a gigantic 8-octave keyboard with a whopping 1688 keys.
The keyboard layout is based on a traditional piano keyboard pattern of 7 white and 5 black keys, but each key gets a bunch of additional variants, including 7 naturals, 7 sharps, 7 flats, 7 double-sharps, 7 double flats, 6 triple-sharps and 6 triple-flats.
In case you’re keeping count, that’s 211 unique keys per octave. For some reason, I don’t think that you’ll ever run out of notes on this keyboard.
Prices range from about $1300 to $3800, depending on the number of keys and whether or not you choose to include the optional synthesizer/amplifier module, or you just need a MIDI controller. You can check out the complete catalog here.
Many gaming geeks also lead a double life as musicians and they can now prepare to wet their pants, when KORG releases its DS-10 software for the Nintendo DS. KORG has taken the design concept of their MS-10 synthesizer and added a four part drum module, two analog synth simulators, a 6-track/16-step sequencer and made use of the touchscreen. Plus a bunch of other cool features.
Damn, I wish I had some musical talent. It might also help if I lived in Japan, which I don’t. That’s where they will be releasing it at a price of 4,800 yen ($47) this July. You know, back in my day, music geeks always got picked on. Well, now they are having the last laugh as a lot of cool tech is being made just for them. Video below.
One of the most popular computers from the 1980s, the Commodore 64, is having a minor renaissance as an electronic musical instrument. The C64’s audio chip is famous for producing an array of warm, familiar 8-bit beats and blips.
As a result, the trusty C64 has become a popular platform for “circuit bending”, which is hardware hackers’ terminology for taking old technology, applying circuit modifications to output audio or video effects that the original device wasn’t necessarily designed to produce.
Now you can own your own circuit bent C64, without any electronic know-how. The circuit bending wizards from Bighead Electronics have made this extremely limited edition pre-modded C64, appropriately called the Bent64.
The system comes completely loaded Paul Slocum’s Cynthcart, a custom program which helps the heavily modded Commodore produce a wild cacophony of retro noise as you press keys on the keyboard.
The Bent64 is a ready-to-go electronic musical instrument, capable of cranking out 3-note polyphonic analog sounds, applying effects with a “whammy” tuning knob, and even stereo support if you can wrangle a second sound chip and install it in the provided socket. The Bent64 can even output a psychedelic light show through a composite video output, so you’re ready to rave out of the box.
Oh yeah, it’s still fully functional as a standard C64 with the flip of a switch before you boot up. So you’d better brush up on your Commodore BASIC.
Hot on the heels of the AirCard 595U, Sierra Wireless is expanding its HSUPA offerings with a new duo of USB modems. The AirCard 880U and 881U both connect to your Windows or OS X-based computer via USB, sport the company’s TRU design features, and offer up a “theoretical maximum [upload] speed of 2Mbps,” while downlink speeds tout a “theoretical maximum of 7.2Mbps.” Additionally, in areas where HSUPA networks aren’t available, both modems are “fully compatible with HSDPA, UMTS, EDGE, GPRS, and GSM network technologies on all frequencies currently used worldwide.” The 880U is said to be “optimized for Europe and Asia, while the AirCard 881U is optimized for North America,” and both units are slated to ship out next month.
